On Media

John Miller explains why the job of journalist and intelligence officer is so similar on CBS.

John Miller: 'Almost no difference' between reporter, intelligence official

By HADAS GOLD

01/09/2014 01:47 PM EST

John Miller, the current NYPD deputy commissioner for counterterrorism and former CBS News senior correspondent, said Thursday morning that there’s “almost no difference” between being a journalist and an intelligence officer.

Asked originally by "CBS This Morning" host Charlie Rose if Miller considers himself a journalist or a law enforcement official at heart, Miller said he would recast the question to between a journalist or intelligence officer “only because there’s almost no difference.”

“Intelligence is nothing more than understanding a problem. Intelligence with very good analysis is understanding a problem well enough to do something about it. That means collecting the facts, analyzing them down to what do they mean, what’s the potential effect, and what’s the potential response,” Miller said. “The work of intelligence officers and reporters is extraordinary similar. You become a briefer, you say here’s the bottom line, these are the potential responses. That’s kind of what you all do.”

Miller left CBS News last month to rejoin his former boss and new NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton in the counterterrorism role. When asked by Rose and co-host Norah O’Donnell about allegations he was not qualified to take on the counterterrorism role, Miller pushed back, saying he’s “not sure people are saying that." He then made a joke about picking up a woman quoted in a critical story about him and subjecting her to a long PowerPoint presentation.

“I’m not sure if people are saying that. That was one article in one newspaper that quoted an anonymous source who speculated, and then a woman who they stopped walking down the street,” Miller said. “Strangely, detectives from the intelligence division picked her up and treated her to a PowerPoint that went about an hour long about my credentials and then she was dropped off near her home.”

After some awkward laughter, O’Donnell specifically referred to the New York Daily News article which pointed at the gaps between Miller’s resume and that of his predecessor David Cohen, who has 40 years of intelligence experience.

“You can look at resumes — they have certain value on paper — or you can look at deeds,” Miller said, before pointing to a New York Times article which he said told a different story about his effectiveness. “Outside of saying, 'OK, I’m human, that hurt my feelings,' there’s no there there.”

Despite some pushback, Rose and O’Donnell were mostly laudatory during the interview. Rose said they missed having Miller around and that “one of the things we loved about having you here was the fact you had contacts across the spectrum of law enforcement.”

Prior to his departure from CBS, Miller was able to use those contacts to secure an interview with National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander, who Miller interviewed in a “60 Minutes” piece that was widely panned for being uncritical of the NSA's surveillance practices. Asked how much NSA data filtered down to the NYPD, Miller said he didn't know.

Elsewhere in the interview, Bratton said he hired Miller because “he’s the best in terms of dealing with ... counterterrorism [and] intelligence” and alluded to their experience working together in Los Angeles, where Miller created a counterterrorism program.